Directing the sequel to a film you previously starred in? Makes sense given Pitch Perfect’s formula. How about reviving America’s most recognizable trio of woman super-spies? Sure, singing and espionage go hand in hand. But helming the origin story of one of the weirdest roadside attractions … fuck it, why not?

Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear is — perhaps needless to say — a strange beast. Imagine if Kangaroo Jack mated with Final Destination, and then the baby blew at least 200 rails. What follows is a mostly fun romp with a few too many storylines that sobers the woodland rage before it really takes off.

Cocaine Bear wastes no time getting its truth out of the way. A drug smuggler accidentally plummets to his death while offloading hundreds of ounces of Colombian sugar. Shortly thereafter, a black bear eats it. And thus ends the film’s historical ties. Instead of dying from a massive overdose, the bear (aka “Pablo Escobear”) goes on a daylong rampage that would make Tony Montana jealous.

Meanwhile, a mother tries to find her school-ditching daughter; three delinquents stumble upon a portion of the coke; a grieving widower goes on a recovery mission with his drug-pin father’s muscle; a detective tries to execute the biggest narcotics bust across Tennessee and Georgia; and at least three other tangents too many rounds out this black comedy of errors.

When Cocaine Bear’s at its best, it’s a gorgeous, gory and gag-filled mess. Dismembered legs, tragic timing and a monster coked out of its gourd is hilarious, albeit rarely terrifying. By the time the film’s star crashes into premature hibernation, fatal whoopsies might have a higher body count than the bear itself.

Unfortunately, screenwriter Jimmy Warden’s compulsion to build intrigue through needless characters detracts from what the tagline asked we “get in line” to see. It has as big a cast as It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with about an eighth of the charm. It’s saved by a few clutch performances, notably comedian Scott Seiss, Margo Martindale and the late, great Ray Liotta.

Cocaine Bear’s first hit is hard to beat, but each subsequent line is met with diminishing returns, save a ridiculous ambulance chase. The film is a reminder, however, that creature features should never take themselves too seriously. Plus, it opens up the door for other insane, drug-induced animals to follow. Ketamine Koala or Shroom Shark, anybody? Hell, Tusko, an elephant that died after being injected with 279mg of LSD in 1962, could very well be Cocaine Bear’s spiritual successor. —Daniel Bokemper

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You’ll be happy to hear Knock at the Cabin isn’t The Happening’s spiritual successor. But it is a prime example of M. Night Shyamalan getting in his own way. Again.

Subtlety, ambiguity and refrain were never the director’s forte, but they didn’t always sabotage his films, either. Here, Shyamalan chips away at an otherwise solid premise courtesy of Knock’s solid source material, Paul Tremblay’s 2018 novel, The Cabin at the End of the World. What’s left isn’t exactly a bad flick, but it’s leagues below what it could’ve been.

It’s easy to dismiss Shyamalan. After all, we’re far removed from what made Unbreakable and Signs endearing. Even so, it’s not unreasonable to hope with the right character, the director still can manage to tug heartstrings between his hallmark twists. Wen, a young girl played by Kristen Cui, could share a cubby with The Sixth Sense’s Cole.

One morning collecting grasshoppers, she’s approached by Leonard, an utter brick shithouse played by Dave Bautista (2021’s Dune). Along with a mismatched trio of colleagues, Leonard forces Wen into her parents’ cabin, trapping the family inside. Once there, Leonard’s group offers them a simple choice: Sacrifice one of themselves to prevent the apocalypse.

Tension builds immediately, and the cinematography does well to make a seemingly cosmic scenario much more intimate. Overall, how the film was shot could’ve been more consistent, but that’s minor. The horrendous news footage, however, can’t be overlooked. These segments are both poorly animated and actively crush the air of doubt that animates the story’s conflict. Shyamalan finds a creative way to nullify that, too, but not before the fake CNN asides do it first.

Pair those with crashing planes on par with Birdemic’s nosediving doves, and it becomes hilariously hard to take Knock seriously. It’s baffling — and frustrating — to see the director deliberately muddle a natural sense of mystique.

This isn’t even considering the inevitable, poorly executed twist. Doubting the power of his symbolism, Shyamalan delivers nothing short of an insult to the audience as character after character painstakingly break down the meaning of their ordeal. Meanwhile, elements that would serve the film’s soft mystery are asides, sometimes brought up once and never to be alluded to again.

Knock at the Cabin is far from Shyamalan’s worst film. What makes it painful is how promising it was. It has all the pieces to match and possibly exceed his best work; if only he didn’t twist his ankle when trying to stick the landing. —Daniel Bokemper

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Prostitution’s a tough gig, even for Santa Monica’s finest. You might contract an STD or, per The Banker, a laser-guided crossbow arrow through the noggin. Even if the film didn’t reveal right away that titular man o’ finance Spaulding Osbourne is the killer, we’d know it because he lives in a warehouse, watches a wall of 16 television sets and keeps a Little Golden Book of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs on his coffee table.

On the other hand, he has one redeeming quality: no love for cocaine bros in bolo ties.

Hunting Osbourne (Duncan Regehr, The Monster Squad’s Count Dracula) is police detective Sgt. Dan Jefferson (Robert Forster, Jackie Brown). It’s only a matter of time before Osbourne targets Jefferson’s ex-wife, TV reporter Sharon (Shanna Reed, TV’s Major Dad), who’s recently ditched segments promoting the Magic Sandcastle Jamboree for on-air editorials against the murderer.

Luckily for the good guys, Osbourne leaves a calling card at each homicide: a blood pattern on the wall that looks kinda like Wilson the volleyball from Cast Away. As Jefferson tells his lieutenant (Richard Roundtree, 1971’s Shaft), “We’re looking at one strange son of a bitch!”

William Webb’s directorial follow-up to the ho-hum Party Line, The Banker hums along nicely. It certainly helps going from Leif Garrett (who cameos here) to Forster. In a variation of his role in Alligator, Forster’s Dan is likely an alcoholic and lives in a treehouse. This allows Forster to give what he was so gifted at: a gruff, no-nonsense demeanor. Dana Augustine’s screenplay aids and abets with appropriate dialogue, including the concluding anti-quip, “I’m Dan, I’m a cop and you’re fucked!”

All in all, The Banker is the type of sleaze that’s polished just enough that you don’t feel a need to shower afterward. Who could’ve guessed that in 1989, Forster was less than a decade away from a career-reviving Academy Award nomination? Or that Roundtree would end the millennium returning as the iconic cat that won’t cop out when there’s danger all about? Or that former Playboy centerfold Teri Weigel and her Tupperware breasts were about to turn to porn? Or that Jeff Conaway could still run? —Rod Lott

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The murder of a 15-year-old boy at the center of Alpha Dog is rendered all the more tragic because it is so totally, utterly senseless. While the teenagers who populate the story fancy themselves as street-smart, they appear to be engaging in make-believe until it is too late – a bunch of self-styled tough guys barreling toward a bloody climax no one is quite smart enough to foresee.

Writer/director Nick Cassavetes fiddles with some names, dates and locations, but essentially Alpha Dog follows a real-life drama that played out in L.A.’s West Hills, late in the summer of 2000. California prosecutors allege that drug dealer Jesse James Hollywood ordered the kidnapping and slaying of 15-year-old Nicholas Markowitz after the boy’s older brother failed to pay a $1,200 debt. Four young men were convicted in the shooting death, but Hollywood, then 20, skipped out of the country and subsequently became one of the youngest people on the FBI’s 10 Most Wanted Fugitives list before his eventual capture.

In the tale’s jump to film, Hollywood becomes Johnny Truelove (Emile Hirsch); Markowitz becomes Zack Mazursky (Anton Yelchin); and Zack’s no-good older brother, the one who gets on Johnny’s bad side, is Jake (Ben Foster). We’ve seen variations of this story many times, of course; delinquent youths and senseless violence have been fueling movies since before Glenn Ford picked up a piece of chalk in The Blackboard Jungle. But Alpha Dog does a tidy job of illustrating characters who feel authentic and defy expectations.

Johnny Truelove is a prime example. Although his suburban home is decked out with high-tech gadgetry and such gangsta accoutrements as a blown-up photo of Al Pacino’s Scarface, the diminutive Johnny is a decidedly confrontation-averse kingpin. As tensions escalate, Jake breaks into Johnny’s home and leaves a turd on the living room carpet. An armed Johnny silently watches the intruder, cowering behind a door. Johnny is far more interested in acting the part of badass than actually being one.

The young cast rises to the occasion. Foster is particularly exciting to watch. With the exception of one ill-conceived fight scene in which he suddenly becomes a cut-rate Jackie Chan, Foster brilliantly evokes volatility and danger. Another notable performance comes from singer Justin Timberlake as Frankie Ballenbacher, one of Johnny’s underlings. No one will confuse Frankie for a tragic character, but he’s the closest Alpha Dog comes to having one – a somewhat dense dude given the duty of watching Zack and who subsequently becomes a substitute big brother for the hostage.

Cassavetes (John Q) enlivens proceedings with directorial flourishes. Some of it works, some not so much. He successfully underscores scenes with an air of fatalism; in one nifty gimmick, Cassavetes employs periodic freeze frames in which written text identifies a character by his or her eventual witness number.

Easily the picture’s strangest inclusion is a scenery-chewing Sharon Stone as Zack’s mother. Like the fat suit in which she’s ensconced, the performance is shameless and bloated – and particularly gross when you consider that the mother of the real-life murder victim reportedly attempted suicide after Alpha Dog’s theatrical release. —Phil Bacharach

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Creepy old asshole Jon Voight plays creepy old asshole Ellison Betts, patriarch and Big Pharma magnate. For his 80th birthday, he invites his human possessions children and their families to his murder castle palatial estate. Jonathan Rhys Meyers (From Paris with Love) is the heir apparent, while Will Sasso (2012’s The Three Stooges) wants none of that BS. If the casting of those two as brothers seems far-fetched, just you wait.

A mysterious gift arrives for the shindig. Like all presents in screens big and small, the box is not sealed in any way, lest three seconds be wasted on watching someone rip paper. One lift o’ its lid reveals a handsomely designed game that shares the film’s title (and logo treatment): Dangerous Game: The Legacy Murders. It comes complete with a Jigsaw-esque voice barking cryptic orders over the mansion’s PA system, I guess.

What transpires is a one-by-one thinning of the Betts clan, as they’re put through a series of challenges involving secret rooms and booby traps. Sean McNamara (director of more Baby Genuises sequels than one should affix his name to) gives us a cockamamie mix of Saw filtered through the dysfunctional family dynamics of HBO’s Succession, minus the latter’s all-around brilliance. Or the former’s commitment to its formula, for that matter.

Barely mustering enough of a damn that sitting in a wheelchair requires, Voight goes whole-hog à la Anaconda, taking a tone no one else in the cast dares, because it’s not called for. Everyone else modulates to the proper level, except when asked to feign extreme pain. On that note, Legacy Murders’ standout scenes include Sasso losing a heel and a cat losing all nine lives to a whirling sink disposal.

As slick as that kitchen appliance after the fact, but lacking the kung-fu grip to squeeze any juice past the first 30 minutes, this is not a sequel to Abel Ferrara’s Dangerous Game, the 1993 pairing of Harvey Keitel and Madonna. In case you were wondering. —Rod Lott

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